Programme Information

The third of a 10-part series exploring the music and pop cultural moments defining the first decade of the new millennium – as seen through the eyes of BBC Radio 1.

In this hour-long documentary, 2002 is presented by Fearne Cotton who meets Ricky Gervais, the man responsible for The Office – one of the most important British TV series of the decade. Ricky discusses his highs and lows and what it's like to have made one of the most defining programmes in the last 10 years.

Fearne also looks back at the start of music reality TV, the much-hyped musical genre that was Electroclash and the year's popularity for bootlegs and mash-ups.

Next week's show, 2003, will be presented by Huw Stephens, who profiles the emergence into the mainstream of The White Stripes, The Libertines, The Darkness and other music and pop cultural milestones.

Producers/Alice Lloyd and Louise Kattenhorn

BBC Radio 1 Publicity

Ken Bruce is joined by Welsh vocalist and Eighties pop-diva Bonnie Tyler, who will be picking her Tracks Of My Years.

There's also PopMaster, the Love Song and the Album Of The Week, which this week is Brit award-winning singer-songwriter and former member of British boy-band Take That, Robbie Williams's new solo album Songbook.

Presenter/Ken Bruce, Producer/Gary Bones

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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Last month, Jeremy Vine invited listeners to vote for their favourite children's bedtime story. Joined this week by former Children's Laureate, Michael Rosen, Jeremy guides listeners through the shortlist of the final eight contenders and, on Friday, reveals the outcome of the listeners' vote for their favourite.

Presenter/Jeremy Vine, Producer/Phil Jones

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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Mark Radcliffe and Stuart Maconie are joined by John "Johnny Rotten" Lydon, who has re-formed Public Image Limited with original members Lu Edmonds and Bruce Smith. They talk about the band's upcoming live gigs, PiL's first performances together for 17 years.

Presenters/Mark Radcliffe and Stuart Maconie, Producer/Viv Atkinson

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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In the third episode of the series marking the centenary of clarinet virtuoso and bandleader Benny Goodman, American singer/songwriter and musician Curtis Stigers looks at Benny's career from mid-1936, after which Benny's reputation built quickly, on disc, in theatres and ballrooms, and on radio.

He looks at the formation of the Benny Goodman Quartet and one of the most famous musical events of the last century – Benny's Carnegie Hall concert of 16 January 1938.

Presenter/Curtis Stigers, Producer/Graham Pass

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

Composer Of The Week – Nielsen Ep 1/5

Monday 2 to Friday 6 November

12.00noon-1.00pm BBC RADIO 3

Through his work as conductor, teacher, writer and composer, Carl Nielsen became the most influential Danish musician of his time.

From modest beginnings on the island of Funen, where as a 14-year-old he got his first proper job as a military musician, Neilsen studied at the Copenhagen Conservatoire and worked as a violinist at the Royal Theatre.

Today he is best known for the six symphonies he composed over the course of his life, although in Denmark he's more celebrated for his vast output of songs. This week Donald Macleod dips into both genres, exploring some of Nielsen's other popular works, such as the choral piece Springtime In Funen, his Wind Quintet and Flute Concerto, highlights from his two operas Saul And David and Maskarade in addition to featuring some of his lesser-known piano, choral and chamber music along the way.

Presenter/Donald Macleod, Producer/Deborah Preston

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

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Ilan Volkov returns to conduct the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in his new role as Principal Guest Conductor, opening with Strauss's scintillating tone poem on the amorous adventures of anti-hero Don Juan.

Austrian pianist Stefan Vladar plays Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4, and the concert ends with the soaring arc of Sibelius's final, single-movement Symphony.

Also on tonight's programme, to celebrate the 75th birthday year of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, the orchestra perform his newly commissioned work Overture – St Francis Of Assisi. Sir Peter first had ideas to write an opera on the subject 25 years ago and was recently inspired to take up the theme again in this concert overture following visits to Italy and re-reading St Francis's own writings.

Presenter/Martin Handley, Producer/Janet Tuppen

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

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The Essay – A Five Day Journey Ep 1/5

Monday 2 to Friday 6 November

11.00-11.15pm BBC RADIO 3

Writer Robert Macfarlane

This week in The Essay, writer Robert Macfarlane walks the length of the South Downs, exploring its chalk paths and its ghosts. In Monday's programme he walks through Hampshire in monsoon rain and sunshine, reflecting on the relationship between paths and stories, and how old paths were imagined in 19th and early 20th-century England as ghostly spaces of time-warp and spectres. He considers how paths might be thought of as sculptures, a kind of democratic art-form; and he meets a man who has been on the road for seven years, since the death of his wife.

In later programmes throughout the week, as he continues his walk, Macfarlane explores poet Edward Thomas's love-affair with paths and tracks and explores the sometimes eerie relationship between walking, collecting and creation.

Presenter/Robert Macfarlane, Producer/Tim Dee

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

Book Of The Week –
The Secret Lives Of Somerset Maugham Ep 1/5

Monday 2 to Friday 6 November

9.45-10.00am BBC RADIO 4

Acclaimed biographer Selina Hastings sheds new light on the complex character and secret life of Somerset Maugham who, for almost 60 years, was one of the most famous writers in the world but kept much of his private life hidden.

A hugely successful playwright and author of more than 100 short stories and 21 novels, Maugham became a master of concealment.

A disastrous marriage to Syrie Wellcome prompted Maugham's extensive visits to the Far East. Predominantly homosexual and in love with the charming but dissolute Gerald Haxton, these trips inspired many of his short stories. A talented linguist, during both World Wars Maugham moved in literary and theatrical circles in London, New York and Hollywood, throwing parties at his villa in the South of France and mixing with legends of the era, including Thomas Hardy, HG Wells and Winston Churchill.

On the surface, Maugham's life was one of luxury and decadence. The reality, however, was quite different. Selina Hastings is the first biographer to have been given access to his extensive private correspondence as well as to important family testimony, which sheds a fascinating new light on this complex and extraordinary man.

Producer/Joanna Green

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Woman's Hour Drama – Singleparentpals.com Ep 1/5

Monday 2 to Friday 6 November

10.45-11.00am BBC RADIO 4

Six months ago Tom's wife walked out on him, leaving him with a crisis of confidence.

Now he only sees his six-year-old daughter Lily at weekends. But on one occasion, in desperation he turns to the message board forum of singleparentspals.com when Lily needs to use a public toilet. A swift response comes from Rosie 200 miles away, and this is the start of a combative, supportive, long-lasting and long-distance relationship.

Rosie is a Bolton care-worker whose ex-husband traded her in for a younger model last year leaving her to bring up 11-year-old Calum alone.

Tom is played by Kris Marshall, with Maxine Peake as Rosie and Singleparentpals.com was written by Sue Teddern.

Producer/David Hunter

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Ray Furlong meets members of Spain's one-million-strong British ex-patriot community to find out what the recession means for them.

The Spanish economy has been harder hit than any other in the European Union, leading to a significant downturn in construction and tourism, upon which the expansion of the Mediterranean resorts has long relied.

Now, with repossessions and divorces on the increase, Ray hears from those British ex-pats for whom the dream of a life in the sun has been overshadowed by brute economics.

With more concrete having been poured in Spain over the last decade than in the UK, France and Germany combined, it's not surprising that there is a huge oversupply of unsold newly built properties, as well as an increasing proportion of repossessed homes.

Pre-dating this, is the scandal known as "land grab" – the largely unregulated development of rural land along the Costa Blanca, Costa Brava and Costa del Sol, resulting in illegally built properties, and some ex-pat estates that can resemble ghettoes. The recession has confounded many who came to Spain in order to begin a new chapter in their lives.

The programme hears from people who have found themselves living in illegally-built property; some who are living on 30 per cent less income; and a lawyer who says the economic climate has led to an increase in divorce applications from ex-pats.

Producer/Mark Smalley

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Award-winning historian Amanda Vickery

Award-winning historian Amanda Vickery presents a series which reveals the hidden history of private life in Britain over 400 years. In the final week, she focuses on the 19th and 20th centuries.

Amanda looks at how homes responded to the huge forces of change outside and explores alternative models of home in the 20th century. She suggests that people are extremely conservative.

The first programme, Domestic Education In The Moral Home, explores the long tradition of home education – for centuries the only education available to girls. Amanda's research suggests that in fact home education could often be very thorough, thanks to the tireless efforts of some mothers.

In the second programme, The Garden Indoors, she explores why 19th-century women were obsessed with having plants and fish tanks in their front rooms.

Exporting Home, in programme three, draws on first-hand accounts of women settling in India and attempting to recreate home in the imperial bungalow.

The penultimate programme, Dunroamin' – Suburban Bliss, examines the idea of suburbia, and the final programme, Alternative Homes, explores the flat, the bedsit and alternative visions of home in the 20th century.

Presenter/Professor Amanda Vickery, Producer/Elizabeth Burke

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Aping Evolution Ep 1/2

Monday 2 November

9.00-9.30pm BBC RADIO 4 (Title change 29 October)

Girls like pink better because in the Stone Age they needed to be good at picking berries and women have better sex with rich men... or so some evolutionary psychologists would have people believe. Some critics say evolutionary psychology isn't science, it is conjecture.

Professor Steve Jones takes a sceptical look at the evidence for and against a new science. Evolutionary psychology seeks to explain human behaviour from the hunter gatherers or our nearest relatives, the chimpanzee and has some seductively simple theories.

The argument is that people have stone-age brains in 21st-century skulls, and this can account for everything from the violence that some men show towards their step-children, to why racism exists.

These two programmes will look at the history of the new science, at the methods used and ask if it can explain the human drive to language, religion and culture.

Steve Jones is Professor of Genetics at University College, London, he is the author of many popular science books and the Daily Telegraph's View From The Lab.

Presenter/Professor Steve Jones, Producer/Geraldine Fitzgerald

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

5 Live Sport

Monday 2 November

7.00-10.30pm BBC RADIO 5 LIVE

Arlo White presents all the day's sport news and is joined by John Motson and Steve Claridge for The Monday Night Club discussing all the latest football issues.

From 8.45pm there's second-half commentary of the Championship clash between Sheffield United and Newcastle United, live from Bramall Lane.

At 9.30pm, Arlo is joined by Mark Clemmit and guests for 5 Live Football League with the latest news and reaction from the Championship and Football League.

Presenter/Arlo White, Producer/Claire Burns

BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity

The Smoking Fairies, aka Jessica Davies and Katherine Blamire's brand of haunting folk-blues, have been enchanting critics across the country.

The girls recently supported Richard Hawley and Dead Weather at Jack White's personal request and released their EP Frozen Heart. They visit the studio to talk to Cerys Matthews and play some live tracks.

Presenter/Cerys Matthews, Producer/Jax Coombes

BBC 6 Music Publicity

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BBC 6 Music's Marc Riley

Marc Riley's live studio guests are Darren and Jack from Hefner, who play live in the BBC 6 Music Hub. They join the show with their guitar and pedal steel on the eve of the re-release of their 2000 EP, We Love The City.

Presenter/Marc Riley, Producer/Michelle Choudhry

BBC 6 Music Publicity

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Gideon Coe's selection this evening includes Birmingham soundscapers Broadcast in concert and a 1972 session from Arthur Brown and his band Kingdom Come. Also unearthed from the BBC archive are sessions from the Go-Betweens, Decoration and German/Danish drone rockers 18th Dye.

Presenter/Gideon Coe, Producer/Frank Wilson

BBC 6 Music Publicity

Roopa hates being stuck at home with no job and Krishan isn't helping, as the drama continues. Later Rita discovers that Jas's internship in New York has been extended for six months. She now wants to know what Roopa's plans are.

Meanwhile, Deepika puts her foot in it with Jodie when she criticises the wrong person.

Elsewhere, Vinnie is shocked to discover that Kuljit and Jodie's relationship is over. Kuljit seems alright, but is he just putting a brave face on things?

Roopa is played by Rakhee Thakrar, Rita by Bharti Patel, Deepika by Babita Pohoomull, Jodie by Vineeta Rishi, Vinnie by Saikat Ahamed, Kuljit by Sartaj Garewal and Krishan by Rahual Das.

BBC Asian Network Publicity

The Strand, BBC World Service's daily arts and entertainment show, features a special week of readings from George Orwell's Animal Farm. South African actor, director and playwright John Kani will read extracts of this classic novel about a revolution gone wrong.

In Orwell's famous satire of Soviet Russia, written during the Second World War and published in 1945, the animals of Manor Farm take up trotters against their human masters.

When Manor Farm's prize-winning boar, Old Major, summons a meeting of all the farm animals, he inspires them to work for revolution and the overthrow of mankind. After Old Major's death, the cleverest of the animals, the pigs, assume command and turn his vision into a fully developed philosophy, which they call Animalism. With the principles of Animalism in mind and the credo, "Four legs good, two legs bad", the animals soon turn the dream of revolution into a reality and throw their drink-sodden farmer, Mr Jones, off the farm.

They rename the farm, Animal Farm, and look forward to a new era of co-operation and harmony. But it's not long before the animals' initial idealism becomes corrupted.

This edition of The Strand is part of BBC World Service's 1989 – Europe's Revolution coverage, marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

BBC World Service Publicity